Writer and wine columnist John Schreiner is Canada's most prolific author of books on wine.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Ten years of Rollingdale wines

Photo: Rollingdale's Steve Dale shows off back vintages

Last September, realtors from RE/MAX Kelowna teamed up with
Rollingdale Winery proprietors Steve and Kirsty Dale to host a reception at the
winery for a delegation of Chinese investors.

At the time, the realtors had listed Rollingdale for $4.8
million. If ever there was a group of potential buyers of this or any other
Okanagan winery, this group would have seemed to be it.

Zall Development Group, one of the five companies in the
delegation, is said to have assets of C$4.9 billion. And that company is a
minnow compared with the Dalian Wanda Group, with reported assets of C$64.8
billion.

This group was squired around the Okanagan by the British
Columbia Ministry of International Trade which was facilitating introductions
for potential investors in the British
Columbia wine industry. To the best of my knowledge,
no more Okanagan wineries have been acquired yet by Chinese buyers (aside from
Lang Vineyards and First Estate Winery, both under Chinese ownership for several
years).

If RE/MAX had clinched a deal last fall, there might not
have been the remarkable wine tasting hosted this week in Vancouver by the Dales. They brought 52 wines
spanning all the winery’s vintages, starting with 2004. The attendees were primarily
restaurateurs and trade buyers.

Aside from Icewine, the older wines likely are no longer
available. The Dales would have dipped into their stock of library wines. But
even if one can’t buy the older wines, one had to be impressed by the
longevity. The tasting settled the questions about whether BC wines can age:
the Merlot “Rosebud” 2004 still shows lively sweet fruit flavours. The 2004
Chardonnay, while past its prime, still appealed with flavours of honey and
marmalade.

You might think the realtors’ listing price a bit aggressive
when you venture down Rollingdale’s unpaved driveway and find that the winery
is in a large metal-clad industrial building. Of course, it is serviceable,
with good winemaking equipment inside, just beyond the tasting counter. The
friendly informality has its appeal. No doubt, the Chinese business people had
a great time, even if no one wrote a cheque.

One feature should have impressed them: since 2007,
Rollingdale has been a certified organic producer. Steve
and Kirsty have a long history in organic agriculture. “I prefer to consume
products that are as clean as they can be,” he has said. “I like to taste the
untouched terroir of a vineyard clearly in the wine.”

The Dales – she is
his high school sweetheart - have had an interesting journey to this point. He
was born in Owen Sound, Ontario,
in 1971 and earned a degree in English literature at CarletonUniversity in Ottawa. Kirsty studied communications at
Queen’s University.

Surprisingly,
given that background, they then moved to British Columbia to open a gardening shop in
Port Moody, where they specializing in making organic preparations and giving
organic advice to local gardeners and greenhouses. After three years, they were
invited to join a horticultural consulting partnership in Switzerland. They spent four years
doing projects around Europe, acquiring a
taste for wine along the way.

Steve then sold his interest to his partners and, after a
year in Spain, decided to
return to Canada
and open a winery. In the fall of 2003, he enrolled in the winery assistant
course at OkanaganUniversityCollege.
His first practicum involved pruning a vineyard by the Hainle winery. By
lunchtime, his employers had learned that Steve wanted a vineyard of his own
and he discovered that they wanted to get out of their lease. “Within a day, I
had taken over the lease on that vineyard,” he says. “It was just like that.”

The Rollingdale winery now occupies that vineyard because
the Dales, after leasing for a year, bought the property. The vineyard, then just a little over two
hectares (five acres) was divided almost equally between Maréchal Foch and
Pinot Gris, with a few rows of Pinot Blanc. He has since added other varieties,
including Chardonnay.

His initial instinct had been to get rid of the Foch, a
French hybrid then still sharing the negative reputations that attached to all
the hybrids (perhaps unfairly). Steve changed his mind late in 2005 when he
left some Foch grapes hang for a few litres of icewine, almost certainly the
first time that variety has been used in this way. Steve was so impressed with
the result, which he called Portage,
that his very limited production of 32 bottles was priced at $840 a bottle. It
is currently in the winery’s website at $199.90. Both it and the 2006 Portage were among the
wines at this week’s tasting and showed very well.

Rollingdale has made Icewine something of its specialty
since opening and has done very well. In a desert wine show in Spain in 2008,
the winery’s 2006 Pinot Gris “Sweet Tooth Series” Icewine achieved a perfect
score of 100. It is on the winery’s web site at $399.90.

The big Bordeaux and Burgundy reds in the winery’s portfolio have always been
made with grapes purchased from South Okanagan
vineyards (organic where possible).

In a nod to Bordeaux,
Rollingdale has released several vintages of “La Gauche” Cabernet Sauvignon and
“Le Droite” Merlot. The 2007 and 2008s are showing very well. Currently, the
winery’s web site offers the 2011 vintage at $39.90 a bottle. I scored the 2011
“Le Droite” Merlot at 90 plus points – and the wine is still developing its
potential.

While it is no longer listed for sale on the web site, the
winery’s 2007 Pinot Noir Reserve is still quite impressive, showing why it has
taken home a string of awards, including silver at the 2010 Canadian Wine
Awards.

This was quite a tasting. I wonder whether offshore owners
would have hosted it.

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About Me

John Schreiner is Canada's most prolific writer of books on wine. Since his first book in 1984, The World of Canadian Wine, he has written 15, including multiple editions of The Wineries of British Columba, British Columbia Wine Country and John Schreiner's Okanagan Wine Tour Guide.